A new year!  I am happy for the retirement of the old one and the entrance into a new time in my life. January, already, has been marked by change.  Change is good.

The bipolar weather in Edmonton (it was 0 degrees Sunday and is currently -17) sweeps across our bones causing us to hurry to our cars to turn the heat on full and fast.  I'm consistently wrapped with a blanket around me at home and being berated by my sister to put on more layers because I'm constantly cold.

However, the winter weather doesn't seem to bug me as much as it did immediately after coming home from South Africa 11 years ago.  Though there are no physical flowers to gaze on, I know the flowers are here.

Perspective.

Through every year, no matter how hard, the goodness is here.  Even in winter.

Sometimes I have to sleuth so hard to find it and other times it's blatant, vibrant, and up-front.

There are flowers here if only we seek them.  Flowers in friends.  Flowers in truth.  Flowers in day to day life.

Though my life is simple and plain as of late, there are good things in my life and I am happy to share them.  They are small, but they are the little buds of hope and goodness that keep my life going.

If Ann Voskamp were here she would call them "gifts."

Here are the things that have brightened my day and lead me to see goodness in the world:

1.  Gatherings of truth seeking people- I meet with a small group every Thursday and this routine in my life is uplifting and warms my heart.  I love people gathered in one spot with purpose.  I love the chatter and laughter, the lightness of catching up, familiar faces, and breaking open a book to read truth together.

2.  In my practicum, I work with newcomers to Canada.  It's a blessing to truly connect and love accross cultures.  Often I am struck by how privileged I am to see and know a part of their world and to be invited into that.  I go home and am beaming on the inside because of the joy of knowing these people!

What if we break into each other and we're not okay?

And we desperately want to be. For our friends.  For our family.

But we've fallen from grace.

What if we try to repair everything in us that's cracked and its just falling apart just as fast as we try to put it all back together?

I noticed the way her eyes changed.  That when she was loved, she took note.  She stood up straighter.  She smiled more.

She transformed.

And I was such a broken version of love to her, my friend.

Their eyes- they were tired and broken inside when they didn't think they were loved.

And I thought, If only I could love deeper and longer, harder and better.  

But when I dug to the bottom of my heart I found that I didn't have all that much to give.

How do I grow this?  I asked myself.

Angkor Wat

Travelling always gives me perspective, as if I've been going through life in a fog going, "Same, Same, Same," everyday.

The routine of everyday can get so narrow and small.

I can't see a freaking thing outside my little box of this tiny life.

And it's all about me.

This, "me, me, me" world.

Often I just need to be shaken up, dropped on the head so to speak, given a little life to life resuscitation.  And with a gasp I finally breath.  Like its the first time all over again.

Getting away from it all- the life I left behind for a while- I can see it like I'm gawking at my own Zoo and I'm the animal in it doing these weird routines and calling it life.  Life is a Zoo.  It's complicated and diobolically outrageous.  And its wonderful all at the same time.

But I get so caught up in it.

Emotions.

Moments that come- and seem so big- and then pass.

Looking at it all from the outside, it seems to simple.

Just know God and love him like heck.

And after that just love people.

If only this was the easy part.

Because loving God above all else, I've learned, means sacrifice.

And loving people- well sometimes that gets messy.

"I've got this," seems to be my mantra. Until something in me cracks.

How humbling.

I don't.

I don't got this.

God's got it all.  I've been seeing all the sights, taking in the millions of people- tourists and locals alike- who are all a part of this and it makes me feel small.  Because I am small.  Going to places like the Toel Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh and seeing how thousands were killed and tortured gives me perspective.

I've got it good.  

I always do.  Even when it seems the world is crashing down, from here it doesn't look so bad.

Perspective.

Room in Toel Sleng prison

The phenomenon of human struggle teaches me about perseverance.  Chum Mey, one of the only survivors of the Toel Sleng prison teaches me about perspective because he still goes forward when life was literally hell on earth for him during the reign of the Khmer Rouge.

I went to see Angkor Wat today in Siem Reap and it was aesthetically and architecturally pleasing.  I love architecture.  I read a bit about the history and I kind of shrugged my shoulders.

Here I am at one of the greatest temples in the world- I actually think it's the largest temple in the world and I'm kind of like, "that's nice."

And I walk around and pretty soon I'm pulling out "The Purpose Driven Life", a book on seeking God's purpose.  And I'm walking around the grounds reading it, because my God doesn't dwell in a temple made by human hands (Acts 17:24).  He dwells in me (1 Cor 3:16).

Perspective.

The kind that kills these moments, or creates them.

You decide.

And I'm kind of half here in Cambodia and half at home in my Zoo asking myself, "How do I live when I get home?"

In light of eternity. In light of how small I am and how Big I NEED God to be.

In light of all this- and I've only mentioned a few of the things I've seen and learnt.

How do I live like I am awe-struck by the gospel all over again? 

How do I love people so it changes them?

How do I learn to fight for justice- because everything innate in me is not a fighter (or is it?).

And I think about my Zoo at home.  I love my Zoo and as inperfect as it gets, it's still my little world with all these people who are full of so much worth.  Every. single. one. of. them.  This is what I see when I look at it from the outside.

And I think to myself.

What a God who can create all of this world and put me in it. 

I'm excited to return to my Zoo with new perspective.

There's a time for this.

For the looking in on the Zoo from the outside.

There's a time for it all.

For loving and clenching and unclenching fist.

Learning.

Being out of routine.

And there's a time to go back.

And love.

And live.

With new perspective. 

At work I shake my head as we discussed the state of the world.  Politics, nature, terrorism, and religion have all collided and its rubbed into the face of all of us.

"The world is just a huge mess right now," I hear myself say.

When I go through these moments of questioning and of grasping for truth in my own life, I often turn to displays of God's miraculous power.

Why?

I am partly an intellectual, but when it comes to my faith in Christ, I've come to the conclusion that the miraculous works of God are one of the greatest evidences of his existence.

...

"In a few days you will be baptized by the Holy Spirit," Jesus says after appearing to the apostles (Acts 1:5).

Acts opens with the reminder that even though Jesus has left, there is more to come.

We are hanging on the edge of our seats if we must be honest.  In life, often, we are barely holding on trying desperately to give off the, "I'm okay world" vibe.

I'm not okay often.  Not on this earth.  Not while there is this schism between God and I.  Not when there is so much wrong with the world.

This is why we must anticipate these words in Acts.  For ourselves.  For the church.  For others.

Because when we are at the edge of our human limits we recognize our need for God to be present, for him to show up and not to leave.

Because Jesus' death and resurrection can't be the end of the story.

In Acts the people are mourning the fact that Jesus must ascend to heaven.  Yet, if you've read Acts you know that many incredible things occur in Acts, fulfilling Jesus' statement that, "you will received power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

When we're in the midst of our messy lives here on earth, the Holy Spirit is the one who empowers us to stand for God. We are witnesses for God, by his grace.

In the midst of what could have been a time of despair, mourning, and desperation, the church is raised up as a beacon, proclaiming the truth of the death and resurrection of Jesus (Acts 2).

In the midst of our world, the current state of politics, and the general confusion of a post-truth world. we are in desperate need for the truth of Jesus, just as in Acts.

I think that there are two responses to the beginning of Acts.

One is that we become witnesses.

By definition a witness is someone who can state what they have seen or heard or know to be true by some means. (Bible hub, 2017).

I almost had an accident today driving to work.  My mind was on something else and I wasn't as sharp as I usually would be.  So I almost ran into someone when the light turned red and they went to make their left turn.  I was the foolish driver running the red light and almost crashing.

Being a witness requires that we keep our eyes open.  It requires that we are constantly aware of God's goodness.  We keep our minds sharp.

We hold our breathe and wait with longing to see more.

We pine to know the real and living God.

And we tell.

We see, not only as the world sees, but with the eyes of Jesus, so we can be witness to the things he is doing (just as in Acts).

When the apostles say Christ ascend to Heaven they became witnesses to his ascension.

He's not done.  God is continually working and we are his witnesses to the things he continues to do.

The second response to Acts is that we are to anticipate God's power with faith.

Faith has been hard to come by at times for me, especially in times of hurt.  Sometimes I'd like to just curl up and shut down, but I know there is a better way.

The believing way. 

As Jesus ascends to heaven the people look to the sky.

"Why do you stand here looking into the sky?  This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11)

It would have taken faith to believe this, just as it takes us faith to continue to put our trust in God over and over again even in the midst of the times he seems far off.

In the remainder of Acts 1, the people pray together and choose another disciple to replace Judas.  Life goes on even while the people mourn the end of Jesus' presence on earth.  Yet, the church continues to grow in Acts as the people continue to see miraculous deeds through the apostles (Acts 2:41- 47).  The Holy Spirit enables the people.

I am quick to shut down and forget to anticipate that God is still powerful and moving, that Jesus is still coming back, and that there is hope in the world, that a church like that in Acts is still available to me today even in the midst of terrorism, messy politics, and difficult circumstances.

I can stand with the Lord and say that I have faith that he will never leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5) and that he has good plans for us (the greatest plan being the gospel).